Along with #fakenews (and #pizzagate) one of the fastest spreading memes of recent times is “post-truth.” A search on February 13, 2017 AD resulted in 34,2000,000 hits on Google.
The Oxford University’s “Oxford Living Dictionary” actually awarded “post-truth” as the word of the year for 2016 AD.
Now, I am unsure of who coined the specific term “post-truth” (which can be an aka for various other concepts such as “relativism”) but in 2004 AD Ralph Keyes published the book The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life.
As a whole the world as a whole is obsessed with deconstructing God’s created order in whole. We have deconstructed the very concept of God’s created order by claiming that it is scientifically and philosophically superior to believe, without evidence, that nothing caused nothing to explode for no reason and made everything for nothing—from nothing, by nothing, for nothing, to nothing.
We have been attempting to deconstruct our very bodies via the transgender and transsexual movements and androgyny and hermaphroditism which will all lead to postgendersism.
Of course this has all been premised upon a deconstruction of reality itself as we have been deconstructing truth itself.
But have we? Can we truly deconstruct truth? Are we truly “post-truth”? Note the very specific claim being made by the Oxford Living Dictionary’s definition:
Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief:
‘in this era of post-truth politics, it’s easy to cherry-pick data and come to whatever conclusion you desire’
‘some commentators have observed that we are living in a post-truth age’
Thus, it is not true that “post-truth” is the claim that “there is no truth” or that there is no “absolute truth” but that poop-culture is opting for feelings, often called opinions or preferences, over actual factual, truth.
When we “cherry-pick data” we are actually affirming truth and are only de-contextualizing it, taking bits and pieces of it so as to “come to whatever conclusion you desire.” Yet, this affirms the actual fact of truth and, by definition, truth is absolute.
Now, absolute basically means that something is that which it is: regardless. Something is that which it is whether you like it or not, whether you agree with it or not, whether you prefer it be different or not or even whether you are aware of it or not: something is that which it is—period.
We may be “post-truth” by preference but it is literally impossible to actually be “post-truth.” This is for the same reason that claiming that “there is no absolute truth” fails as a claim.
For example, “some commentators have observed that we are living in a post-truth age” and when “some commentators have observed that we are living in a post-truth age” they are claiming that it is true that we are living in a post-truth age and are thereby affirming truth. Of course, this is where context comes in and context is the number one manner whereby to define a term: when “some commentators have observed that we are living in a post-truth age” within the context of the Oxfordian definition then the meaning is that “some commentators have observed that we are living in an age wherein it’s easy to cherry-pick data and come to whatever conclusion you desire.”
Thus, technically when defined in this manner this is different than the “there is no absolute truth” claim as anyone who claims that “there is no absolute truth” is affirming that they believe that it is absolutely true that “there is no absolute truth” and have thusly discredited themselves via a contradiction.
Therefore, ensure that you are contextualizing the term “post-truth” as claiming that it is tantamount to the “there is no absolute truth” claim would be #fakenews.
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